


The Pedigree of Honey

by the_rck



Series: House of Sulfur and Mercury [13]
Category: Chronicles of Amber - Roger Zelazny
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Dark, Background Luke|Rinaldo/Merlin, Background Martin/Merlin, Captivity, Cats, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Memory Suppression, Non-Consensual Bondage, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Referenced Luke|Rinaldo/Martin/Merlin, Stockholm Syndrome, The cats are fine, Torture, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-21
Updated: 2018-11-21
Packaged: 2019-08-25 19:53:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16667236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_rck/pseuds/the_rck
Summary: I have no idea when I stopped hating Merlin, but I do know when I stopped hating Martin.





	The Pedigree of Honey

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from Emily Dickinson's "Pedigree."
> 
> The violence is mostly implied/referenced, but there is bleeding onscreen. It's the prelude for the comfort part of the hurt/comfort and really isn't the point.
> 
> This is in the branch of the series in which Luke is Merlin's prisoner and in which they do not have children. I think that both of the Luke is Merlin's prisoner branches are going to keeping splitting into infinity because I keep having ideas that don't fit with each other but are still fascinating to write.
> 
> Thanks to Gammarad for beta reading.

After Martin’s first visit to Merlin’s Shadow, Merlin treated me better. Most of the time. He took me outside every few days and seemed to enjoy giving that back to me every bit as much as he’d enjoyed taking it all away. I just didn’t dare trust it, especially given the darkness that looked out at me from behind his eyes. He wanted his friend back, but he also very much wanted me to scream again.

Nothing anyone could do would give him the former, so it’s not surprising that he occasionally indulged his desire for the latter.

I did what I always had and tried very hard to give him whatever he wanted at the moment. I offered myself for fucking. I endured beatings. I-- There wasn’t much of me that didn’t belong to him.

Martin’s second visit to Merlin’s Shadow didn’t help at all. No, it did because I’d been terrified of it and it turned out not to be as bad as I’d imagined. He still looked at me like I was a puzzle he was trying to solve, and he still treated me as merely a toy when he and Merlin were visiting me, but he was more predictable than Merlin.

Having Martin visit me without Merlin meant Martin was going to fuck me, but he wasn’t brutal then. He didn’t pretend that I had a choice or that I wanted him there, and he didn’t expect me to pretend either. It was… oddly restful. He liked knowing that he could hurt me. He liked me knowing that he could. He didn’t feel the need to take the additional steps and actually hurt me, not as long as I didn’t forget.

Merlin wanted me to forget because that made my suffering sweeter.

Martin just wanted Merlin. “I know you can’t make him happy,” Martin told me the first time we were alone in my bedroom after he came back from wherever the hell he’d been. He was clothed, and I was naked. He had me pressed up against the wall.

My fingers pressed against the stone behind me. Long experience told me that all I’d get, scrabbling for purchase, was broken fingernails, so I tried to focus on the texture. It was rough in a way that meant that any movement scraped my skin, sort of like sandstone but without any chance that particles would end up embedded in my flesh. This was the only rough wall in my suite.

I wasn’t sure, then or later, whether Martin even realized that the wall he’d shoved me into was different from the others. It was more or less the same color as the rest. One had to touch it to know. He hadn’t at that point, but it was entirely possible, probable even, that Merlin had told him.

Martin hadn’t done anything yet to justify panic, so keeping still was easier. This might not be one of the bad times. I didn’t have enough data on Martin to guess, but I had enough to be able to breathe steadily.

I fixed my eyes on the wall opposite us. That was the one that Merlin let me decorate as I wished. The other three walls were his, but he gave me that one. Right now and most of the time, it displayed macrame in yellows, blues, tans, and greens that all looked washed out if I let myself see the carpet or the bed or anything else in the room. That wall was soothing because it had no red or brown. Never any red.

I’d never bled against that wall.

Merlin hadn’t noticed until Ariyus asked about it. Now, this was the only room in my suite with red in the decor. There was brown but never a brown with red tones, never a terracotta. The red in the bedroom was going to stay until Merlin lost interest in fucking me.

If I could have gotten away with sleeping in a different room, I would have. No one said anything if I occasionally nodded off somewhere else, but if I was deliberately lying down, it had to be the fucking bed. I’m pretty sure that Merlin saw me wanting to sleep elsewhere as self-punishment or a sign of depression. He could-- possibly would-- have chosen the cruelty of making me sleep where he tortured me, but I didn’t think he had.

He knew the mixture of comfort and cruelty in making me sleep in that bed while he shared it with me, and he liked that. I just didn’t-- still don’t-- think he’d done this deliberately.

Me explaining wouldn’t have changed a single damned thing. It was a much smaller unkindness than denying me windows, so Merlin would have smiled and pointed out that it was damned nice bed and that he could certainly arrange for me to spend a few nights somewhere… less pleasant. 

The ladder of ‘worse’ between that bed and the maze had a hell of a lot of rungs, so it probably wouldn’t be the maze. I understood that the ladder went even further down than that and that Merlin could send me to every one of those hells if he chose. He just wouldn’t because the maze did all of the things he wanted perfectly well.

Including the not quite killing me part.

Martin’s thigh pressed a little harder into my crotch, demanding my attention.

I gasped and focused my eyes on his face. 

“You could, however, make him… more unhappy.” The look he gave me then started completely indifferent then became something harder and darker. “As long as I don’t kill you, he won’t care what I do to you.”

It was true, mostly, and acknowledging it made me tremble. I managed a nod to show that I had heard the implicit threat. I couldn’t think of any reason why I would deliberately make Merlin more unhappy-- that was already a river of shit rolling downstream, straight at me-- but apparently Martin thought I might.

Maybe he was going to punish me when I did it accidentally. That opened a new array of traps. I couldn’t possibly avoid them all. I almost managed to swallow my whimper.

Martin brushed his fingers across my cheek. “Merlin would burn worlds-- even this one-- to keep you. I--” He took a deep breath then exhaled slowly.

I felt the movement of air from that exhalation and knew that, although he’d cleaned his teeth, I was going to taste fish and garlic when he kissed me.

He certainly would kiss me.

“I might help him,” Martin said, sounding as if it was a vast concession rather than simply that he would burn worlds to keep Merlin and that keeping me was a way of keeping Merlin.

I didn’t see any of it as an advantage so I turned my head to look at the closed door behind which my cats were probably destroying the most recent layer of carpet I’d put on their climbing trees. I couldn’t hear them because Merlin found the thumps and vocalizations distracting when we were--

“Luke.” There was the merest hint of a command in the word, and I obediently turned back to him. Martin leaned in and kissed me.

I still wasn’t sure if he wanted me to respond with feigned enthusiasm or just to submit. He hadn’t given me any indication, either way, as to which would please him more. Guessing-- I didn’t dare because being wrong meant being punished. I also couldn’t manage both at the same time.

I tried anyway.

After several seconds, he pulled back and said, “You can kiss back. You don’t have to, but I don’t object.” He hesitated for a second then added, “Or is it even a choice?”

I hated him. I didn’t let it show, but right at that moment, I hated him more than I’d ever hated Merlin. It was like lightning through my arms and legs. I closed my eyes. “We both know I don’t want anything, either way, not about that.”

Kissing was trivial. I only wanted to know how to make him keep kissing me longer before going on to more unpleasant things.

The sound Martin made gave me the impression that, yes, he had known. He just hadn’t thought I’d say it.

“Ghostwheel won’t tell Merlin,” I said. “Hearing it would hurt him, and Ghostwheel’s better at judging that than he used to be. Ariyus relies on Ghostwheel to tell him what’s important.”

That last wouldn’t always be true, but Ariyus thought I was his father. I could protect him that much. Not that Merlin and Ghostwheel wouldn’t gut Martin if he hurt Ariyus. They’d just be very upset if it needed doing.

“ _That_ takes some getting used to.” Martin wasn’t talking about anything to do with me. He studied me and seemed to expect an answer.

So I gave him one. “I don’t remember different.” It was almost true, but I didn’t think that my childhood memories or my college memories, what little I still had of each, counted. I shrugged minutely and added, “They’d still be there, even if you didn’t know.”

He studied me for a moment, and I did my best to look blank. “Yes,” he said at last, “but I do know. Ghostwheel… With just him, he _could_ be watching, but he wasn’t necessarily.”

I’m sure my disbelief showed. “Before you kissed Merlin, that was true. After… Ghostwheel’s always going to be watching. You’re higher priority than me. Less than Merlin or--” I knew there were other people Ghostwheel would prioritize over Martin, but I couldn’t find their names right then. I had pictures somewhere of the people Merlin thought I should remember. I didn’t look at them unless I had to, but Merlin had labeled them all with names.

I shook my head. “As long as I’m in here, Ghostwheel doesn’t have to watch me all that closely because almost all of the dangers are things he wouldn’t consider protecting me from. Right now, he’s watching closely but mostly in case I snap and try to hurt you. I might be fast enough to do something before Ariyus could summon Ghostwheel.”

Martin laughed, but he didn’t look like he found it funny. He looked like he was starting to understand.

Martin might or might not realize that, if I did snap and attack him but failed to cause obvious damage, Merlin wouldn’t hear about it from either Ariyus or Ghostwheel. Neither would stop Martin from telling Merlin or from retaliating against me, but they wouldn’t bring retaliation from Merlin down on me if they could avoid it.

Martin smiled. That looked real. He put a hand on the back of my neck and pulled me away from the wall for another kiss. He held me-- and the kiss-- as his other hand wandered lower, all the way to my groin. He continued the kiss until he felt my cock start to harden then kept going a little longer. When he stepped back, his smile was a little sharper, still real, just crueler. “I enjoy your response, the unwilling physical part and the active part where you try to please me,” he said. “I don’t care what’s in there.” He flicked a finger against my right temple, making me flinch. His expression softened minutely. “I thought it might be easier to know.”

I nodded in answer because it would be easier. Being an unresisting doll would be easiest, of course. If he’d wanted that. 

He didn’t but if.

There was enough of me left to wish he did. Maybe I did still want some things. I’d have to work on that. And Martin did want my mind. He was deliberately forcing me to think. He just didn’t want my mind when he was fucking me.

I focused my attention on giving Martin everything he wanted that my body could provide. The next couple of hours compared favorably with Merlin at his gentlest because Martin didn’t expect me to pretend I wanted to be there. 

I only had to let my body do what it was going to do anyway. I only had to move in the ways, touch in the ways, that were better for him. He didn’t want me to smile or beg when I didn’t mean it, so I couldn’t screw up and misjudge that part. If I ever did either and meant it, he might get off on it because both were signs of his power over me. He just wasn’t requiring that.

He only wanted me to remember that I didn’t have a choice, and it wasn’t a thing I’d ever forgotten.

****

I have no idea when I stopped hating Merlin, but I do know when I stopped hating Martin.

Merlin had only been there ten minutes, and I was already bleeding. Martin had left, and Merlin was taking it out on me. 

Profit and Loss were safe in their room; Merlin had had Ghostwheel make sure. Merlin wasn’t that far gone. 

The only other thing I could count on being off the table was the maze, and that was mostly because I thought Ariyus would object unless Merlin had a real, solid reason beyond wanting to be cruel. Ariyus knew that Merlin was cruel to some humans, but Ariyus thought Merlin had limits when it came to me.

Merlin had me bent, face down, across the bed with my arms bound and stretched over my head and my face pressed hard into my red and gold bedspread. I almost couldn’t breathe. His claws hadn’t so much cut me as gouged out bits of my flesh. That part was very deliberate, and both of us knew it.

We both also knew exactly how many days it would take for the scars to vanish after the wounds healed. Merlin had spent months, early on, measuring that and adjusting variables to see which ones changed how fast my body healed. He never sent me to the maze until after those wounds closed, so I welcomed that particular experiment.

I hadn’t fought this time because I never did, because I couldn’t, because it wouldn’t help at all. The part of the couldn’t that came from the cords around my arms was a kindness, as much of one as I was going to get, anyway. There was going to be a point-- probably very soon-- when I wouldn’t be able to stay where Merlin wanted me. Me losing control was part of what he wanted, but me writhing carried the risk that Merlin would cut me too deep in the wrong place.

I was going to need Sibyl after Merlin was done. He just didn’t want me to need her before he was satisfied.

I couldn’t stop sobbing. “Please. Please. Please, Merlin, please.” Ten minutes in and the words had already lost all meaning. I still couldn’t stop them.

Merlin’s claws dug into my ass.

I was vaguely thankful that he hadn’t drugged me. Yet. All of the drugs he was likely to give me now would heighten the pain without letting me pass out. I really wanted to pass out.

“Merlin--”

I hadn’t said it, and I’d have recognized Ghostwheel’s or Ariyus’s voice if either had spoken.

Merlin made a strangled sound that I couldn’t identify and suddenly wasn’t touching me any more.

“You don’t want to do this.”

Oh. That was Martin’s voice. I didn’t try to lift my head to confirm that because there wasn’t anyone else who could be in the room with us now.

Merlin snarled. Then he made a sound like punctured balloon.

“Not to Luke,” Martin said. “You don’t want to do this to Luke.”

“You came back,” Merlin sounded as if he didn’t quite believe it. “You didn’t say goodbye.”

“You were busy.” Martin sounded half-apologetic. “I thought I could get back before you-- Well. And Ariyus knew.”

“I’d have gone with you.” The pain in Merlin’s statement terrified me. “I could. I’d have been useful. Figuring out clues in Fiona’s laboratory--”

“Abandoned laboratory.”

I was still bleeding, still terrified and in pain, but I understood now why Merlin was angry and hurt. Magic was Merlin’s specialty. Martin would have been less at risk if Merlin had accompanied him. Merlin thought that Martin had judged him too weak to be relied on.

And, possibly, Martin had.

“Ghostwheel was with me,” Martin said. “He’d have brought you through if there’d been need. She cleaned the place out pretty damned thoroughly. Not even a single trap. I just had to make sure it was clear enough for Vialle to be safe going in. She perceives evidence even Fiona doesn’t think to get rid of.”

I recognized the name Fiona, but I wasn’t sure about Vialle. Maybe I’d known the name once. I’d buried so damned many memories that it was possible. Maybe her image was in that set of pictures I never looked at.

And, really, it didn’t matter if I understood any of this as long as Merlin was distracted. I tried to even out my breathing. Sometimes, after, doing that helped. I just couldn’t be sure yet that we actually were done, and not knowing kept me from relaxing. Merlin and Martin together was better than Merlin as he’d been a minute ago, but the two of them fucking me together was never going to be something I eagerly anticipated.

“If you’re mad at me, Merlin, don’t take it out on Luke. You’ll only feel worse after.”

I heard movement behind me, but neither of them touched me. A few seconds later, I felt the Logrus and then a sudden rush of air as two bodies vanished from my bedroom. I was still tied to the bed, but I was alone.

I let myself enjoy the alone part. The tied to the bed part would get miserable eventually, but it wouldn’t be anything like as bad as what Merlin had been doing. I turned my head to rest on my right cheek. Being able to breathe properly felt miraculous.

“How hurt are you?” Ariyus asked.

I hadn’t expected to need to speak, so I choked on the words.

“Worse than it’s been in a while.” Ghostwheel sounded clinical. “Not as bad as I’ve seen.”

I closed my eyes.

“Can you handle the Logrus long enough for me to untie you?” Ghostwheel asked.

I made myself nod. I was used to the Logrus, and the other option was waiting for Merlin to return. I tried to make my brain work because this wasn’t something Ghostwheel had ever offered me before.

Then I really parsed Ghostwheel’s words. Ariyus hadn’t seen me like this before. Ghostwheel had, but this was as much outside of what Ariyus expected in terms of how Merlin treated me as the maze would have been.

And that was very likely why Martin had come back. Merlin would have managed to rationalize away anything he did to me, and Martin didn’t give a rat’s ass about how it might affect me as long as Merlin was okay.

How it affected Ariyus, on the other hand… 

I felt the Logrus on my skin and held my breath while Ghostwheel untied Merlin’s knots. Once I could, I pulled my arms back, toward my body. I didn’t try to stand. I wasn’t sure I could.

“They’re… talking... to each other,” Ghostwheel told me.

I spoke Ghostwheel well enough to interpret those pauses as Merlin and Martin yelling at each other. I didn’t care as long as I didn’t see either of them for a while, and Ghostwheel didn’t sound worried about it.

They probably weren’t trying to kill each other, and if they did, I’d still have Profit and Loss and Ariyus and Ghostwheel. I shut down that line of thought as too dangerous.

Ariyus said, “Martin looked really worried when I told him what was happening.” Ariyus sounded like he thought he understood, but I was pretty sure he didn’t. He thought Martin cared about me.

Ariyus couldn’t be right about that. Martin caring about me could--

I stopped myself at the edge of that abyss. Expectations hurt more than actuality. Hope breaking hurt more than not having it to begin with. Merlin had taught me both lessons entirely by accident.

Martin would have done it deliberately.

****

By the time Martin visited, I mostly wasn’t bleeding any more. I had had food and had slept. The sheets were going to be a bitch to clean by ordinary means as I’d bled more on them while trying to get comfortable than I had on the coverlet while Merlin was clawing me. 

I stripped the sheets and let them soak in my bathroom because that would increase the odds that Ghostwheel would send someone with new sheets. He wasn’t likely to think it necessary otherwise, not unless I asked.

I saved asking Ghostwheel for things for the times when it really mattered. Food was fine. Food was routine. Toiletries were okay, too, as was anything meant for the cats. New clothes, clean sheets, books, art supplies, all of that was up to Merlin, and he was usually good about noticing before I had to ask, but sometimes, he liked having me ask.

Ariyus gave me the slightest whisper of warning when Martin entered my suite. I was in the room with all of the stuff for the cats, and I stayed where I was. If Martin wanted me in the bedroom, Ghostwheel would have chimed to summon me. If Martin had wanted to drop in right on top of me, Ghostwheel would certainly have put him there.

I wasn’t sure if Ghostwheel realized that Ariyus told me every time someone came in, that Ariyus told me who so that I had a moment to prepare. Ghostwheel always could have done it; he just never had.

I’d have been willing to ask Ariyus for clean sheets, but he couldn’t move anything without Ghostwheel’s help. Ghostwheel would if Ariyus asked, but he’d always want to know why.

Loss was in my lap, purring while I rubbed her chin. I let her stay there while I waited for Martin. Holding her, focusing on her, let me settle and prepare myself for whatever might be coming. She helped me keep from turning to watch Martin approach. I couldn’t hear him, so he’d wonder how I knew to look.

I considered getting up anyway, leaving the room, and shutting my cats in where they’d be safe, but if Martin really only wanted to talk, I’d feel better in here where it smelled more like my cats and their food and their litterbox than it did like my own blood and terror. Attention to a pet was a socially acceptable reason for not looking at another person. Even Merlin knew that.

I didn’t think Martin was the sort of asshole who’d hurt my cats to hurt me or even just to hurt some helpless thing. If I was wrong, I needed to know that. There wasn’t a lot I’d be able to do, but I needed to know.

And Ghostwheel had promised.

Martin might realize that I couldn’t protect my cats. I doubted he guessed that Ghostwheel would. Ghostwheel didn’t value Martin nearly enough to put his well-being over Profit’s or Loss’s.

And, really, going after Profit and Loss would be more out of character for Martin than for Merlin. 

Merlin might do it simply because he wasn’t completely in control of his impulses. As far as I could tell, Martin didn’t have impulses. That was easier and harder. If he wanted something from me, I wasn’t ever going to be able to distract him, and I didn’t have many tools for bargaining. 

Martin just also wasn’t ever going to hurt me-- physically anyway-- without intention or control.

And Ghostwheel really would protect my cats.

Martin knocked on the doorframe before he came inside. That would have told me that he was there-- and that it was him rather than Merlin-- even if Ariyus hadn’t informed me, so, although I flinched as if in surprise, I didn’t assemble the smile I’d have offered Merlin.

I twisted, ignoring the complaints of my still healing wounds, to look up at Martin. I held my cat and waited.

Profit was on top of one of the cat trees, not the tallest, not the shortest, the one I’d recently covered with white carpet because I hoped that seeing which trees had more hair on them and where would tell me more about what the cats preferred. I still had four left to put new carpet on. Profit raised her head and stared at Martin.

He looked at her for a moment then looked at me and Loss. He shrugged and dropped to the floor next to me. There was a barely visible bruise high on his left cheek that made me wonder whether or not him and Merlin yelling at each other had included them throwing a few punches at each other. 

The Shadow hadn’t vaporized around us, and I thought I remembered that people could sometimes be angry, even to the point of violence, without any trace of the horrors between me and Merlin. I decided not to worry about it.

“What are their names?” Martin asked.

I didn’t want to tell him, mostly because I didn’t want to talk to him at all, but I also thought he was trying for a neutral topic of conversation. Something less loaded than _Are you still bleeding?_. That was, I suspected, what he wanted to know. My clothing was navy blue and heavy cotton knit, and I’d chosen it for a reason. No one-- except Ariyus who could infiltrate both the fabric and the space between that and my flesh and my cats who could smell it-- would know about the occasional, seeping blood.

Mostly, I wanted not to see it. That gave me a thin layer of deniability that let me pretend that I was okay.

“This is Loss.” I nodded at her. “That’s Profit up there.”

I could tell that he was thinking about the layers of meaning there. He was almost certainly letting me see that.

He glanced at the door. There weren’t many rooms in my suite with actual doors, so the fact that there was a door meant something. “You shut them in here when you… have company.”

I did, so I nodded. “Most of the time. Even when he’s--” I choked a little, so I changed what I was going to say. “I usually have that much time.”

Merlin had made sure that Profit and Loss were securely contained before he started in last time. He actually wanted not to hurt them, even when he desperately needed to hurt me.

Martin studied me for several seconds. “I didn’t see them--?”

“The door was shut.” I pulled Loss against my chest. She was more willing to let me do that sort of thing than Profit was. “Merlin asked Ghostwheel to make sure.”

Martin nodded. “I’m glad of that.” His hand twitched as if he wanted to touch something. I wasn’t sure if he wanted to touch Loss or to touch me.

Probably Loss. Martin wouldn’t hesitate to touch me; Loss might scratch. I certainly wouldn’t, but my cats could.

“They mostly like Merlin,” I told Martin. “Having them is… is good. Sibyl thought I should have pets.”

It hadn’t been my idea. I’d asked Merlin, but I wouldn’t have thought to on my own.

“Sibyl?” Martin sounded like he couldn’t place the name.

“The doctor Merlin has check on me every so often.” I looked away. “She knows, no way she couldn’t, but she doesn’t judge. Me or him.” I didn’t think I needed to specify what she knew. “She’s… I don’t know how old she is. Old, getting older.”

Martin didn’t respond for a moment. Then, he said, “You’ll need someone else soon, then.”

I knew that was true. “I had hoped that… For a while, it wasn’t urgent.” I shuddered. “I didn’t need her this time.”

Loss was warm against my chest. She was purring.

I bent to press my face into her fur.

“You looked like you would.” The sentence sounded carefully neutral.

“I expected to.” I wasn’t going to thank him because I didn’t think he’d done it for me. “I hadn’t-- He hadn’t-- It had been a while.” I cleared my throat. “I didn’t need her after the first time I met you.” I heard him shift. 

“That does establish a baseline.” There was a surprisingly dry bitterness in the words.

I thought I remembered that Martin had been hurt very badly once. By my father. “When you-- When you were... hurt, did you have a doctor?” It might not be a safe question because Martin had to hate my father for it, but I suddenly wanted to know.

He didn’t pretend not to know what I meant. “No, but I was older then than you are now.” He sighed. “And it was only one wound and only once.”

“It was a gut wound.” I hadn’t realized I knew that. “Systemic infection had to be a real risk.” I dared a glance at him.

He didn’t look angry. “It didn’t happen that way, and I didn’t know-- then-- that it could. Do you worry that it will happen again? If there isn’t a Sibyl, I mean.”

I hadn’t let myself think about my own near death from infection because I suspected that had required the maze-- The dirt, the starvation, the dehydration, the cold, and the lack of sleep must have played a part. Going back to the maze terrified me in a different way than death did. The closest I usually got to suicidal was wishing that Sibyl hadn’t been able to save me that first time. Or had chosen not to.

I fixed my eyes on Profit as she stood and stretched and then leapt to the floor. “It’s more--” The words stuck in my throat, but I forced them out anyway. “Before you, I mostly needed her for bones and joints. Merlin wasn’t careful about those, and they wouldn’t always heal right on their own.” I took a deep breath. “After, it’s only been check ups.”

“I may, perhaps, owe you an apology.” He wasn’t talking about Sibyl any more.

I flinched because I recognized the formal words. They dug at things I’d deliberately buried. “Don’t,” I said without much hope that he’d actually listen.

“If that’s easier.” He sighed and extended a hand toward Profit.

She sniffed his fingers, backed up two steps, and looked at him. Then she sniffed again.

“Would it upset anything,” Martin asked, “if I offer them treats?”

“It shouldn’t hurt them. Ghostwheel knows what’s safe.” I wouldn’t tell Martin no because that was safer for me, so that part had to rely on Ghostwheel. 

Merlin had never thought to offer my cats treats. Not treats that weren’t gifts for me to pass on. I wondered if that was Merlin choosing not to try to suborn my cats or him just not realizing that he could. Maybe it was a little of both.

“Please, Ghostwheel,” Martin said. “Fish if you would.”

“Of course,” Ghostwheel said. “Local?”

Martin’s eyes widened minutely. “I hadn’t considered other options.” He glanced at me. “Have you ever been to Rebma, Luke? Is that a thing you remember?”

“I…” I didn’t remember going there, but that didn’t mean I hadn’t. “I know a little about it. Some of the books Merlin’s given me come from Amber.” Then I remembered something else. “That’s where you come from.” I was sort of astonished that I’d managed to come up with that fact.

“It doesn’t matter,” Martin told me gently. “I’m going to share a meal with you, and I’d like to have things that remind me of Rebma. That matters to me.”

Profit and Loss both enjoyed most of what Martin offered them, but there were three things that neither would do more than sniff at.

Martin laughed at that and asked Ariyus about the Shadow the cats came from so that the two of them could figure out if it was that these fish were too different from Earth fish.

I sniffed one of the rejected treats myself. I thought it smelled like blood and sulfur. I wouldn’t have eaten it either, not unless I had no other options. Profit and Loss always had other options.

I would eat whatever Martin offered me because I didn’t.

A few parts of our meal were crisply raw, but Rebman food was mostly soggy. It tasted fine, but the salt and the water were inescapable. Nothing was fried or even baked. Martin explained that Rebmans didn’t generally have beverages with meals, didn’t need them. Martin then asked Ghostwheel for wine from Amber.

From a specific vintner whose name I thought I ought to recognize.

Martin didn’t comment on my frown at the name Bayle, but he certainly noticed. His ensuing discussion of Rebman cuisine took detours that Merlin’s discussions of aquaculture never had and remained light, superficial even, unless I expressed specific interest.

I wasn’t sure if it was Martin having better conversational skills than Merlin did or if it was Martin testing me somehow. It didn’t really matter. If it was a test, I couldn’t cheat because I was what I was. I was what Merlin wanted me to be.

Dessert was some sort of fruit salad. After we finished, Martin said, “Does it bother you? The things you don’t remember, I mean.”

I made myself not understand. “I don’t remember them. I don’t remember them so that they can’t bother me.”

He made a small noise that I took as understanding and looked at the wall a bit to my right. “How long can you keep doing that?”

I didn’t answer because I thought the real question was whether or not it would ever be worth trying to retrieve those memories. I could keep pushing them deeper and deeper forever.

It might actually be forever. I could live that long.

The sudden terror at that must have shown on my face or in my body because Martin looked concerned and said, “Luke?”

I smashed the thoughts, brought myself under control, and folded my napkin next to my bowl.

“Does Merlin like it when you do that?”

For a moment, I thought Martin was referring to the napkin. Merlin didn’t give a shit what I did with my napkins. Then I remembered. “No,” I admitted. “He just mostly doesn’t notice, and it hurts less.” I kept the fear and pain this time because Martin had noticed and seemed to want to talk about it. I kept my eyes on his face and waited for him to tell me what else he wanted.

Martin studied my face. “He’ll never say so, but he knows he went too far.”

I couldn’t answer that. I didn’t believe that Merlin understood the concept of ‘too far,’ not as it applied to me.

Martin sighed. “I love Merlin, but I also-- I’m fond of you. I knew I might hurt Merlin. I didn’t think that I-- that this particular thing-- would hurt you.”

I felt like I was falling into infinity. I also wasn’t sure I believed him. “You’d have gone anyway.” If possibly hurting Merlin wasn’t enough to prevent him, possibly harming me wouldn’t weigh at all.

“I misjudged,” Martin said. “I thought he’d understand. Or not notice. It wasn’t-- It wasn’t all that urgent. Vialle was impatient, but I could have put it off long enough to talk to Merlin.” He met my eyes. “We may treat you like shit, but you’re not my damned whipping boy.”

I looked away. “I am if you want me to be.” 

The prisoner doesn’t get choices.

“My royal ass is not so precious that my punishment has to fall on someone else. Not on you, not on anyone.”

“I’m always going to be here.”

“Yes,” he said. “I won’t overlook that part again.”

Forever was a long time, so Martin probably would, but maybe I’d have years between now and the next time. I pushed thoughts of forever away so that I could focus on the sort of gratitude Martin was probably going to demand.

I stood when Martin stood. I don’t think I managed to hide how startled I was when he said, “I’m ready to leave now, Ghostwheel.”

Martin smiled at me as Ghostwheel removed him from my suite.

**Author's Note:**

> Martin's still a monster. He just doesn't want to do anything unintentional. He's also much better at manipulating people than Merlin is. Luke's not missing any of those things; he just doesn't think they matter in the moment. 
> 
> What Martin offers makes things a little bit better. What motivates the better matters less than the simple fact of better.


End file.
